Top five cheapest energy deals for December 2017 – Which?

Frosty mornings, frozen fingertips and perhaps even a sprinkling of snow. If you’ve turned up your heating or left it on for an hour longer to beat the chill, it doesn’t have to mean a vastly bigger energy bill. See what savings you could make by switching supplier to beat a winter bill rise.

This month, we’ve found a £329 difference between the priciest standard energy tariff from a Big Six energy company and the cheapest deal on the market. That’s enough to buy you an Apple iPad 9.7 or eight bottles of the top-scoring Which? Best Buy Champagne.

If you switched to the cheapest deal from any of the Big Six’s standard tariffs, you’ll save £264 at the very least. Just short of an iPad, but still enough for six bottles of Best Buy bubbles.

Worried about your winter energy bills? Read on to see the cheapest December energy deals or compare gas and electricity prices using our independent energy comparison site Which? Switch to find the best deal for you. Or phone on 0800 410 1149 or 01259 220235.

December’s cheapest gas and electricity deals

British households now have more than 70 energy companies to choose from. To save you time on your December to-do list, here we’ve listed the five cheapest gas and electricity tariffs for medium users.

All the top five deals are from smaller companies. The top three are all from Usio Energy, which only launched in autumn.

The first figure shows how much each deal would save you over a year compared with British Gas or Npower’s standard tariff. We’ve chosen these because they’re the cheapest and priciest standard tariffs, respectively, from the biggest six energy companies.

How soon can you save money on energy?

Switching energy supplier takes only a few minutes if you have the right things to hand. Check what you need in our step-by-step guide to switching energy supplier. Once you’ve made the switch, there’s a 14-day cooling-off period in which you can change your mind.

After that, it will take 16 days on average, according to energy regulator Ofgem, to complete your transfer to the new company. If you want to switch faster, choose a supplier that’s signed up to the energy switch guarantee. These companies pledge to complete your switch within 21 days.

Gas and electricity companies in the news

British Gas, Eon, Npower, and SSE have all hit the headlines recently. British Gas, Britain’s biggest energy supplier, announced plans to scrap its standard tariff for new customers, while Npower and SSE plan to merge into one ‘new independent energy supply and services business’, SSE said.

Meanwhile, Eon took the longest to answer the phone to its customers in our energy companies customer service investigation. The snapshot research found that Eon kept us waiting 14 minutes and 18 seconds on average to speak to a human, while the fastest firm, Bulb, took just 27 seconds on average.

After Eon, British Gas, SSE and Npower were the slowest firms to pick up the phone.

Our energy pricing research

Prices are based on a dual-fuel tariff available in all regions for an average user (using Ofgem averages of 3,100kWh of electricity and 12,000kWh of gas per year), paying by monthly direct debit, with paperless bills. Prices given are averages across regions, are rounded to the nearest whole pound and correct on 4 December 2017.